The Spy

Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 39K words
Chapters: 4

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Spy by Richard Harding DavisAuthor: Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 12, 2006

Editor's review

The Spy is a short work by Richard Harding Davis, available in the Project Gutenberg eBook collection. Davis was an American journalist and novelist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; his works often use war, diplomacy, and adventure as settings, move at a brisk pace, and make skilled use of suspense. This piece centers on espionage, is short, and has a concentrated plot, making it a useful sample for understanding the early form of spy narrative in American popular literature. The text is a public-domain English book, and the electronic edition is easy to search and read alongside other texts. Readers can place it in the context of popular literature around World War I to observe how the spy figure is shaped and how the author advances the narrative through compact scenes. For those studying the evolution of genre fiction or practicing English short-story reading, this small book offers an accessible entry point.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature enthusiasts interested in early English spy short stories
Students needing public-domain English short fiction for extensive reading practice
Readers interested in early twentieth-century American popular literature

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a long, complex espionage plot with multiple layers of reversal
Beginning readers who need a modern Chinese translation or detailed notes

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then revisit dialogue and action details in key scenes.
Drawing on Davis's journalistic experience, note how the text describes event scenes and the transmission of information.
If using the book for English study, summarize each section in two or three sentences after reading, then check your understanding against the original.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a short story?

According to the Project Gutenberg record, this is a short work by Davis. It is not long and has a concentrated plot, suitable for reading in one or two sittings; it should not be expected as a full-length spy novel.

What is the English difficulty level?

The work dates from the early twentieth century. The language is generally plain, but some sentence structures and word choices carry period features. Readers with college-level English can finish it with a dictionary; beginning readers may need more support.

What are the practical advantages of the electronic edition?

Project Gutenberg provides a public-domain electronic text that is easy to search in full, copy passages from, and print. Readers can split it by chapter and conveniently compare it with works on similar themes.

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About the author

Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916 Author

Richard Harding Davis (1864–1916) was an American writer and war correspondent, with 49 works held in this collection. Public information is limited, yet the range of his writing can be seen from the titles listed here: he wrote both war reportage and fiction and character sketches. Notes of a War Correspondent records a reporter's firsthand experiences in the field, Real Soldiers of Fortune tells of adventurous soldiers, while Gallegher and Other Stories and Van Bibber and Others show his skill in the short story, with a light touch and a gift for portraying city life and a variety of characters. His works are often classed as inspirational coming-of-age reading and have circulated among young readers, combining the immediacy of journalism with the readability of fiction; they have influenced later war reporting and popular narrative.